Uoxtloi Bessous (Words of Custom)

Below is a list of words related to custom and ritual in Gaulish. There are many reconstructions of Gaulish, of course. The one mostly used here is called Iextis Galation, compiled by Iumâros Cunoulatis. The word Scâxslon provided by Farwater. Iumâros pulled from the best and up to date reconstructions to make a function, revived and growing Gaulish.

Some basic things to know about pronunciation:

“ð” makes a “ts” sound

When “u” is before or after a vowel, it makes an English “w” sound.

When “i” is before a vowel, it makes an English “y”, or German “j”.

The circumflex “â,ê,î,ô,û” indicates a long vowel.

All “c” are “hard”, having a “k” sound.

There is of course much more, but these five things are sufficient to know. Pronunciation likely varied throughout Gaul, just as any other language has many different dialects and pronunciations of words. Those five items however, are constant regardless of other kinds of variants in speech.

Whenever you see (os/â/is) it means (masculine/feminine/ambiguous) these endings denote gender. This is used here when I speak of kinds of people. The -is ending can be masculine or feminine grammatically, which allows for general ambiguity. Hopefully those who identify outside of the “binary” will find this useful.

With that said, here are a list of words relevant to ritual (Dedmatâ) and custom (Bessus):